10 Killer Reward Ideas to Attract and Keep A Players

Date: November 5, 2018

The way you keep and attract great talent has changed recently in the job-hopping nature of today's workforce. What you did in the past no longer works now. It's not just about the money anymore. You may have heard top employees from big tech companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and many more leave for a lower salary. Despite the jaw-dropping salary and perks tech giants like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple can afford. They still have a very low retention rate. Apple has a retention rate of just 1.85 years, Google 1.90 years, Amazon 1.85 years, and Facebook tops the list of the biggest tech giants with 2.02 years. The good news is…you can attract and keep A players without having to pay a huge salary if you just understand this one principle. Knowing this will give you a huge edge over your competition. What is it? More than anything else employees value recognition. According to a study done by CareerBuilder, 50% of employees would stay if they were just recognized… and according to Forbes, 76% of millennials will leave if unappreciated. That's why it's essential to implement a rewards and recognition program in your company. Best of all this type of rewards program is inexpensive and most of the rewards I'll reveal are free. In fact, it's better to give small recognition rewards frequently than big rewards occasionally… this motivates an employee far more. Plus, it doesn't have to be large or costly either. Creativity is the secret that will get everyone on your team excited to take your company to the next level. So let’s begin, here are the only 10 employee reward ideas you’ll ever need to attract and keep A players. 1.) Peer Bonuses Google gives peer bonuses. How it works is whenever anyone on the team nominates someone for a small bonus because they went the extra mile or have been a very valuable asset. The submitter has to meet certain guidelines and tell why they chose this person. It's then sent to the manager for a review. Most of the time it gets approved and the person nominated gets $175. 2.) Have your employees do the recognition The Motley Fool which is one of the best places to work did an engagement survey. They discovered that their employees felt that recognition was too tied to the leadership team. So they decided to let all Fools recognize and think each other instead of the people at the top. It worked amazingly well. All they do is the employees say thank you to someone else on the team regularly. It can just be a thoughtful email to them. Can even have your employees use Slack messaging to recognize each other. 3.) The 7-minute pick me up The popular 1-800-Got-Junk has a quick 7-minute huddle every day at 10:55 am for a morning pick me up. First, they celebrate the wins to create that positive energy. Next, they recognize the achievements of each other. Then they talk about the critical metrics like sales calls, online visitors, and jobs completed. In these 7-minute meetings, it helped them solve very costly problems. Like when they were losing $1,000s every day and they solved it from someone’s idea in the huddle. It just cost $40 to fix it. Amazing things happen when you get everyone in a positive state. Problems get solved faster and innovation occurs. They also use Bucket List Rewards for their employee recognition and rewards program. 4.) The GEM Reward At the Staten Island University Hospital Radiology Lab. The employees had a difficult time wheeling patients around throughout the hospital. It's a very exhausting job that was causing them to miss their moves per hour goal. So they came up with a genius recognition idea called Go the Extra Mile (GEM). How it works is whenever an employee sees someone going the extra mile, they nominate them for a GEM certificate. This gets more productive from them. 3.) Recognize their passions Omelet is an independent boutique creative agency. They work with huge brands like Warner Brothers, AT&T, Walmart, and Mitsubishi to name a few. They came up with an employee recognition idea called 60/60. Which allows their employees to spend two hours every week on a project they're passionate about and it doesn't even have to be related to the client. This shows them you care about their passions which will help boost productivity and energy. 4.) Recognize your staff on social media Whenever you give out an award. Take a picture of them with the award and post it on social media like Facebook. This makes them feel valued and want to keep doing great work for you. Plus makes a great impression for A players to want to work for you when they see how you recognize your employees. 5.) Handwritten thank you notes This is an easy and quick award to give. All you do is write a handwritten note saying what you appreciate about them. Maybe about a result they achieved or how they went the extra mile. Then just set it on their desk when they’re not there. All this takes is a couple of minutes and they will appreciate it. 6.) Have a meeting in Starbucks Change the environment up and take everyone to Starbucks for a meeting. Then buy them coffee. This is a great way to de-stress and connect with your employees in a relaxing environment. 7.) Let them take time off When an employee does something amazing or achieves a big performance goal let them come in late one day. You can also say it's a beautiful day today so take the rest of the day off and enjoy it. 8.) Paid day off We surveyed 1,000 employees and discovered that one of the most popular recognition ideas was a paid day off. So next time an employee does good recognize them by giving them a day off. 9.) Custom Action Figures This is a unique and very cool gift that’s sure to please all. You can create a realistic 3d action figure of your employee. You just send them 3 photos of their face (front, left, and right). Then they’ll use a special software program to create a realistic 3D model of their face. You can choose any action figure you want. It’s something they will tell their friends and family about. 10.) How to please them all One of the problems companies have is how do I know what my employee will like. At bucklistrewards.com we have a unique employee recognition and rewards program that motivates employees to grow, thrive, and be more productive. We do this by giving them incredible experiences. Your employees can choose from 1,000s of ideas or create their own experience so you don’t have to come up with any ideas that will please all. It’s the most hands-off rewards program you’ll ever use. This is what 1-800-Got-Junk uses for their employee recognition and rewards program. Click here to see a demo